Bradham v. State

Citations

• 41 Fla. 541

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law — Arraignment Not Necessary on Second Trial— When Peremptory Challenges Must be Taken — Single Exceptions to Refusals to Instruct — Proof of Wounds as Alleged — Abuse of Argument.</p> <p>1. Where a defendant on a first trial has been regularly arraigned and plead not guilty, it is not necessary, upon a retrial of the . same defendant upon the same indictment, to re-arraign him, or for him to plead anew.</p> <p>2. While defendants upon trial for crime should be protected in the proper exercise of their right of peremptory challenge, yet such right must be seasonably exercised Before the jurors are sworn in chief; otherwise it is waived.</p> <p>. 3. Where a single exception is made to embrace the refusals of the trial judge to give two or more requested instructions, containing distinct propositions of law, the appellate court will not sustain such an exception if it finds any one of the refused instructions to have been properly refused.</p> <p>4. In an indictment for murder the substance of the charge is, that the prisoner unlawfully and with a premeditated design killed the deceased by means of shooting, poisoning, cutting, blows or bruises, or the like; it is, therefore sufficient if the proof agree with the allegation in its substance and general character, without precise conformity in every particular. In other words, an indictment describing a thing by its generic term is supported by proof of a species which is clearly comprehended within such description. Under this rule where the indictment alleges the death to have been caused by shooting, and describes the mortal wound to have been of the breadth of one-quarter of an inch and of a depth of four inches, the proof is sufficient if it shows that death resulted from numerous wounds inflicted by shot of small size fired from a gun, but none of which were of the dimensions alleged in the indictment.</p> <p>5. It is improper for counsel to add, by his own statement in argument, a material fact, w